ISLAMABAD: Senate Standing Committee on Power Friday called off its scheduled meeting due to absence of Power Division officials including Secretary Asif Hyder Shah.
Presided over by Senator Saifullah Abro, the Committee discussed the matter pertaining to permission given for extension of Kot Addu Power Company (KAPCO) contract up to October, 2022. The committee chairman inquired as to why no action was being taken by the NEPRA against the illegitimate extension of KAPCO and why had a petition not been filed yet.
The NEPRA vice chairman informed the committee that several correspondences had been made regarding the issue. The Committee chairman asked about the total payment made to KAPCO after the expiry of its tenure to which the committee was informed that a total payment of Rs 57 billion was made to KAPCO against a rate of Rs 19.5 per unit, along with the variable payment, however no capacity payment was made.
NEPRA stated that KAPCO has been made minimal payments with strict tariff rules on the take and pay mechanism which implies no capacity payment was made to the company.
The committee raised the question on the status of the petition before NEPRA for revision of tariff of GENCO-1. The NEPRA authorities further stated that it is not the mandate of NEPRA. The committee members showed dissatisfaction at the imperfect and irrelevant answers by NEPRA authorities. The committee observed that the electricity problems in the country cannot be resolved if the Power Division will continue to work in such a delayed and non-serious manner.
The committee had intended to take briefing from the secretary Power Division and all concerned on the implementation status of all the pending recommendations made by the committee in its meeting held during the period from June 24, 2021 till February 14,2022 along with issues regarding rehabilitation plan of de-licenced public sector power generation plants of GENCO-I and petition pending on the revision of tariff of Genco-1 but it did not take place due to his absence.
The agenda of the meeting also included the bill titled “The Regulation of Generation, Transmission and Distribution of Electric Power (Amendment) Bill, 2021” and other issues of public importance. The committee regretted the absence of the Ministry officials because of which this could not be discussed.
The committee chairman noted that the secretary ministry had sought permission of an hour’s delay for appearance in the meeting. The committee members waited for the appearance of the secretary for an hour but to no avail, after which the members decided to dismiss the meeting.
Senator Fida Muhammad, Senator Saifullah Khan Nyazee, Senator Sana Jamali and Senator Bahramand Khan Tangi were present in the meeting. The NEPRA representatives also attended the meeting.
An official from Power Division told this scribe that the Senate committee’s secretariat had been duly informed that presence of secretary would not be possible in the meeting on March 25, 2022 and it was suggested that Committee’s meeting should be rescheduled.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
Comments
Comments are closed.